Cisco Wireless Reviews

We use it to provide wireless access to our students, faculty, and non-teaching staff because we are a university, an educational institution. I am one of the non-teaching staff who takes care of the networking side.

The feature that I have found most valuable is its durability because we can rely on this solution. It is also easy to configure. Lastly, if something happens, we get good support from Cisco.

One thing which we really don't like about Cisco is that it is very expensive. If we compare it to other brands like Ruckus or Aruba, it seems to be almost double in price. So that is a major concern. Recently, I have been looking for something comparable to Cisco which is a lower price.

Cost is a major area because if you look at the technical features with other solutions, they seem to be the same in every feature, with no big differences. For example, if you support a 1.5k ACL with two parallel lines, others are supporting 2,000. It's not a major difference, but it is there. I think you can show that it as at par with the competitors.

I would say that the product is best-in-class. The only thing is the price because whether you're a government institution or a private organization, everyone looks for the best price. If we just compare to the competitors on the financial side and we have to pay twice, then it's very difficult for us to go for something even if we know it is very good. So the price should be much less.

Another improvement Cisco Wireless could make is if they provided a calculation document or study on requirements for wall thickness, signal range, switch location, etc.

Additionally, I think it is already very advanced and potentially supports 5G. That is perfectly fine, but it would be good if they could increase their signal strength, because sometimes we face difficulty getting signals, even from a wifi access point in the next room. This goes hand-in-hand with the document I mentioned calculating the range area of the product, etc. There are international standards and/or limitations on that. 

I personally have been using Cisco for a only few years, since I was hired, but my institution has been using it for around seven or eight years.

The stability is good. 

For wireless, I would say it is good. But when we were using the Cisco firewall we found some difficulties setting up and our internet was breaking up or something like that. But from a wireless point of view, it is fine.

Also, one point which just came to my mind about Cisco is if we could have some kind of calculation for the access points because then maybe we could make a web off of all of them. "How much of that access point is required. This access point is covering this much area." If we can have that kind of information it would be easier for us to calculate the capacity. 

It is scalable. We are currently looking at the scalability so that we can provide the infrastructure to some other blocks, as well. I haven't tried it yet or discovered what problems I'm going to face, but I think that it should be able to scale. I think we will be able to do that, but I'm not sure right now.

During peak time, there are around 5,000 or 6,000 users. Now, in COVID-19-like situations, there are maybe a hundred or 200.

We don't have any plans to just switch to another product because we don't have that flexibility. We will just go for open tendering. We will make some generic technical aspects of the product and throw it in the market. Everyone will be invited. We can't just ask for Cisco only. That's why I was worried about their price because if they are the most expensive we will not pay them if they qualify.

The initial setup is not that difficult, it is just technical. For example, if I am looking to set up Cisco, then I should have the skills required to install it. So I would say that the setup is fine. It does not need to be changed. In fact, the product which we have has a controller on our premise that Cisco is now offering to our controllers for switches. So I think this concern is handled over there because controlling through the cloud is a little easier than this centralized controller product, particularly for an institution or organization.

I would say that it's a good solution. Everything is there and I have nothing to point out. 

I would definitely recommend this product, but at the same time, I would say that they should bring their price down. 

Like every solution, it has pros and cons. It's just part of the process.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cisco Wireless a nine. From the product side, I would rate it nine, but if you ask me about the return on investment, I would probably say a six or seven because the investment is huge here.

Survey/design and deploy Cisco Wireless (3500/3600/3700) in hospitals/universities.  The object was 100% coverage with RTLS support.

The challenges are RF propagation control and saturation with RRM. Another is future-proofing capacity. In the 3700 series, ATF was the limiting factor in Cisco’s solution.

Compared to other solutions, captive guest network is one of the best isolation and tunneling. All other features of RF are average.

• The ability to disable RRM or set hybrid RRM. This provides a more granular design of RF in the environment.
• CLI controller/RF debugging.

• RRM
• ATF
• Ortho-Polarization
• AP concurrent client processing

No issues with stability.

Performance issues.

I would rate tech support 7.5 out of 10 on the RF side. Overall, it’s what you would expect for Cisco.

Switched to Cisco because of upper-level decision.

Pretty straightforward if you understand RF and what the options mean on the WLC.

Expensive.

Aruba, Aerohive, Ruckus, UBNT, Mikrotik.

I’ve been working with Cisco Wireless since 2008. Although CPI and controllers have come a long way, the AP is the limiting factor. There are a lot of assumptions in the controller algorithm.

Don’t just conduct a passive survey. Set up three APs and do an active survey with RRM enabled among three.

Cisco’s wireless solution is a seven out of 10, in my experience, compared to other solutions. It has limitations on the polarization processing.

We use Cisco Wireless for wireless connection.

The most valuable feature of the solution is reliability.

The solution could be cheaper and have a better web interface.

I have been using Cisco Wireless for ten years.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for scalability.

The solution’s technical support is average.

The solution’s initial setup is complex, and an average user will not be able to do it. You need to know the command line to deploy Cisco Wireless.

Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Cisco Wireless.

The solution can be deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. You need to be very technical to deploy and maintain the solution. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We've got a very large install base with Cisco Wireless. We use it for a number of situations.
We use it in warehouses, retail branches, and offices.

It is a reliable and robust solution. Access and Mobility Groups are useful. We don't use anything very fancy.

Its licensing has been very frustrating. There is also the complexity of managing the product. These are probably the two reasons why we're looking at Aruba.

The way they license this product is not simple. There are some good features in the latest version, but there are additional license costs as well, which is frustrating for us. It is not really a feature issue for us. It really comes down to cost and licensing.

They should make it a bit simpler to manage. We find the overall solution a little bit more complex than we would like to deal with. Its troubleshooting is a bit difficult, and it does require a high skill set. Comparatively, Aruba seems quite simple. One of the benefits of the Aruba product is that it is cloud-managed. We don't have to manage the management platform itself, whereas Cisco is on-premise. Its user interface could also be better.

I have been using this solution for maybe 15 years.

It is stable and reliable.

It is scalable. There are no issues with scalability. We have approximately 5,000 users.

They are very good. I am satisfied with their technical support.

Over the last 15 years, we've done so many installations, and we've had them refreshed many times. We've also done installations in the last six months. It is in the middle in terms of complexity. It is neither straightforward nor too complex.

Its licensing is not simple. There are additional license costs for features, which is frustrating for us. There are some features that are included for free in the base Aruba product, but they are available at additional costs in this solution.

I would rate Cisco Wireless a six out of ten.

We as a system integrators provide wireless solution for big enterprise and PSU's. This solution primarily focuses on giving secured wireless access to employees and internet access to guests. 

We have seen that Our organization and many other organization for whom we have provided wireless solution have improved using this product because it helps enhance user experience. We use video communication a lot, like Skype, lync, etc and earlier we used to get a lot of jitters and faced lot of issues during voice or video calls. Presently the technology as moved to 802.11ac wave 2 which gives more bandwidth to the end users connecting to the 5ghz band.

From a technical point of view, I think the major difference in feature set has been the granular application visibility and control that an wireless administrator has over the wireless network. The other valuable point would the ease with which one can give secured access to anyone coming with a laptop, mobile , tabs etc..

I think the technology is already at a level where it's good enough. In some ways, it's better than wired. But there is always a backlash when it comes to lack of accessibility. It's not the solution itself, as much as how it's deployed.

The product could be improved with interference reduction. Because wireless frequency interferes with microwave or Bluetooth technologies, which are hindrances to a genuine wireless connection. A lot of users still use legacy wireless adapters and they do not experience the speed that they could get using the latest technologies. The number of devices on the market makes wireless communications complex. If the problem of interference could be reduced it would further improve utility and ease of system design.

The latest version of this technology is stable. It is stable but, the devices that are accessing the network are very dynamic. It is not as much the solution that is unstable as that the devices accessing it are constantly changing.

The scalability of the solution is excellent. Wireless used to be a non-critical part of the network earlier and it started with speeds as low as 11 Mbps. Now you're seeing the speeds of five gigabits with Wifi 6. Wireless is an innovative technology, and it has been changing. Scaling is something we need to do very frequently to meet the demands for higher speeds, higher bandwidth, and higher coverages. 

You need wireless expertise during the design phase, but I think a typical network engineer with fundamental knowledge can take care of day to day operations quiet easily. Once it is deployed and implemented, the operational costs are very low.

We get help from Cisco support whenever it is required. The level of service is excellent.

We definitely tried many solutions before going mainly with Cisco Wireless, including Ruckus and Aruba.

The major reason to go with cisco has been the support system. Nobody can beat Cisco when it comes to their support infrastructure and the SLA (Service Level Agreement) that they provide. The number of engineers who are available who are Cisco certified is much greater than those certified in Aruba or Ruckus. So anybody who deploys Cisco can easily get a Cisco Certified Engineer to take care of there wireless network.

We do the entire deployment as well as the design. It takes around an average 20 days to complete the entire deployment for a 1000-user network.

Cisco support has been a major help because right from the beginning Cisco support strength and the technical licensing centers played a major part in the success of deploying in the Enterprise Network. People buy it because of this. There are other, cheaper products available with a lifetime guarantee but without any support. Cisco took care of the critical issues whenever we needed them to. 

We are system integrators and we do have our own team who design and implement wireless solution..

We have definitely received a return on our investment because the major part of any wireless solution is the quality of connectivity. When you have good connectivity, you can access the environment, go inside the network and access production resources from a mobile device sitting basically anywhere. 

Cisco licensing is usually provided for 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years. You can get a hardware SLA or hardware and software SLA for a period of 5 years. Longer terms of SLA influences  the pricing.

License pricing also depends on the features that are being used.

Though cisco is our first choice, we have evaluated other options like Aruba and Ruckus.

Whatever solution used, the design of the wireless network is the most important part of how well it works. I would plan on putting in 60% of the effort to the design and 40% to the deployment. In the designing phase, you must actually get into the network, look for interference issues, create proper wireless heat maps and place the wireless network connection points in the exact location where it is required. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Cisco Wireless products are easy to use. 

Cisco Wireless is stable.

Cisco Wireless is scalable. 

It wasn't easy to set up Cisco the first time, but it got easier once I knew what to do. We have a 12-person technical team to deploy and maintain these solutions. 

Cisco Wireless is expensive.

I rate Cisco Wireless nine out of 10.

I primarily offer my clients solutions with managed services, the standard managed services. It is used for wireless connectivity.

Our team is able to design the solution with the necessary features. It's flexible.

The solution overall is quite good.

Support is fantastic. They are helpful and responsive.

It's a very simple solution to set up.

We find the solution to be scalable.

The stability on offer is great.

The pricing of Brazil is very expensive. When you look at other options, they are much cheaper. 

I've been working with Cisco since 2000. I've had well over a decade of experience with the product so far. I've used it for a long time. 

The stability has been great. We haven't had any issues. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches that you have to deal with. The performance is good. 

We've found the solution to be quite scalable. If a company wants to expand it, it's not a problem.

We have about 200 people using Cisco Wireless right now. 

Technical support from Cisco is excellent. We are very satisfied with their level of attention. They have always been helpful and responsive. 

I have experience with both Meraki and Cisco.

The initial setup is simple. A company shouldn't have any issues with it. It is not something that is too difficult or complex. 

We have five engineers that can handle deployment for our clients. 

We've used both consultants and resellers when it comes to setting up the solution.

If our clients need assistance, we can help them set it up.

The cost of the solution is quite high.

Clients can pay a licensing fee on a monthly basis. 

Any extra fees would depend on the individual client projects.

We're a Cisco partner. 

I used various deployment models, including cloud and on-premises as well as hybrid.

I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We've been quite happy with its capabilities overall.

We use it for Wi-Fi at home. We'll have all devices connected to this Wi-Fi router.

As for valuable features, it is tough, has a nice speed, and is quite reliable.

I would improve the Wi-Fi range. Sometimes, in some rooms the signal could be a bit better, a little stronger.

I've been using Cisco Wireless for a couple of years.

I have had no problems at all with stability.

The installation is very easy and straightforward. I did it myself.

It's a good device, and I would recommend it. On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at eight.